Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 by Francine Prose Read Free Book Online Page B

entirely my fault. Suzanne’s enormous appetite was not just sexual, but gastronomic. She couldn’t go two hours without eating. A woman who hated being hungry so much should have thought a million times before taking up with a penniless, legally unemployable writer. But shouldn’t a grown woman be able to skip an occasional meal? I’d noticed that when American women are in love they stop eating completely, a financial windfall for American men.
    When Suzanne hadn’t eaten, everything annoyed her. My talking, my not talking. My accent. My age. My desire for her. The harder she tried not to show it, the more she shrank from my touch. I despised myself for not having the money to buy her the freshest oysters, the crispiest fried potatoes, the silkiest underthings, the softest, most bug-free bed in Paris.
    I know she would deny this. She’d say she got fed up with a monster of self-involvement like moi . Me, a monster? Self-involved? She was looking for excuses.
    After our affair ended—a sad story I will tell in the following chapter—I was depressed for weeks. Then I put it behind me. But did I ever get over her? She came to symbolize everything I wanted and would never have. And so I conclude this chapter more or less where I began, having returned full circle to the subject of self-pity.

M AY 11, 1928
    Special to the Magyar Gazette
    The New Diana Thrills Paris
    Â 
    THE RAGE OF Paris this season is a seventeen-year-old girl who is giving the fastest Frenchman a run for his money. For the past week, a convent-school student known as Mademoiselle Lou has been thrilling crowds at the Vélodrome d’Hiver with her speed, strength and endurance.
    From a distance, an ignorant stranger might mistake Mademoiselle Lou for a stocky, muscular fellow in a white blazer and flannel trousers. But on closer inspection, one sees the full red lips and dark curls that give this confident young woman’s face the saucy sparkle of feminine beauty.
    The audience cheers as she sprints the course, nimbly jumping the hurdles, heaves a javelin, then hops on a bike and streaks past the crowded bleachers. This record-breaking athlete is already being mentioned as a favorite to compete in some event (as yet unspecified) in the next Olympics. Meanwhile the whole city is buzzing about this creature whose very existence proves that the modern French woman has boldly snapped the chains that still imprison her sisters in the more old-fashioned, less progressive cultures.
    May 15, 1928
    Â 
    Dear parents,
    I cannot go on like this! My days in journalism are numbered! I must find another way of supplementing your stipend, another job that will let me have my nights free to wander the city, taking pictures. It’s demoralizing enough to be demoted—or pro moted, according to my editors—to the sports pages. But when I actually find a subject worth writing an article about, they refuse to print it.
    Last week I attended the event described above. This time I only made a few tiny improvements on the truth. That sparkle of saucy feminine beauty was my invention, as were the hurdles and the bike. And Paris is hardly abuzz about Mademoiselle Lou, though they should be buzzing about this young woman who, in our country, would probably be exhibited as a circus freak.
    I would never have heard of this girl if not for my friend Lionel. With typical directness—excuse the language, his, not mine—my American pal remarked that the sight of a big, healthy, muscular girl in pants, running and chucking a spear, made him feel like a happy bumblebee was buzzing in his trousers.
    It was perfect for the sports page! Even my stingy editors agreed, though they only gave me two hundred words.
    Lionel warned me to get to the Vélodrome late. The girl has a promoter, a pretentious Brit who lectures the crowd in abysmal French. There might have been more of a buzz if this guy weren’t such a bore. This self-styled